Books for Body and Mind

Your Fantastic Elastic Brain: Stretch it Shape It

This a great book for teaching children how they have the power to change their brains and what challenges are helpful to learning. The book published by Little Pickle Press also has a fantastic website with activities to use along with the book.

Link to lesson plans can be found here

Making a Splash

Available on kindle at amazon, Making a Splash is a simple straight forward story of what happens when children persevere and work towards a goal with a growth mindset. This would be a great book to project on a large screen and discuss as the children make connections of their own.

The Most Magnificent Thing
Do you have children that get frustrated when what they are working on doesn't go as they planned? The Most Magnificent Thing is one girl's journey through the creation process and what techniques and strategies she uses to create her most "magnificent thing".

What is the most important thing? What should I be doing? These are questions that children and adults alike ask. The Three Questions by Leo Tolstoy answers these questions in his engaging and beautifully illustrated book. The story takes a look at focusing on what is here and now, focusing on what is important.

Comments

Teacher Training and Education and the Need for Individualized Education

Argument for the reform of teachers and their role in the schools and their training. A typical Finnish teacher teaches just under 600 hours a year, whereas the average American teacher teaches students over 1,600 hours annually. According to a recent Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-sponsored study of the teaching profession, U.S. teachers habitually work an average of about 10 hours and 40 minutes a day, with a great deal of time spent teaching and supervising students. Finnish teacher, “Our teachers who teach languages for which many essays have to be graded often have fewer lessons,” Marianna said. “And they can decide on their own where they get that work done. They may teach two lessons one day and then go home or to the gym around noon — and then correct papers or work online with students later in the evening.” With so many ideas and reforms and tests and strategies, it is my belief that teaching is getting more and more away from why many teachers went into teac...

How We Learn Tricks to Help it Stick

Throughout my studies I have read various books that explain how the brain works which parts of the brain focus on certain activities, thoughts and emotions. Applying this information is crucial to helping students learn. Easier said than done. Knowing what sticks for one person may come easily, while trying to understand how to make things stick for another might take several tries. I believe that experience and focus are a learners best assets. Whether it be practicing maths or learning to play the guitar, we all learn at different speeds and in different ways. Focusing on what we are doing is the most important attribute to have when practicing, it is a crucial part of what Anders Ericsson outlines as deliberate practice in his book Peak. Deliberate Practice In order to help others learn, educators must be observant and take the time to see what the individual learner is latching on to and what they are resisting. We all have our own individual strengths, the key to ...

Not Yet and a Growth Mindset

I wanted to share a few superb videos I found via PBS Sesame Street. Catchy, fun and driving the growth mindset message across.

The Sky Is the Limit Learning

Search This Blog